nextgenerationmarvel | Day at the zoo (intro and open to whoever's in the area)

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Day at the zoo (intro and open to whoever's in the area)

Mrs. Grekova had told her she was in danger of growing roots herself if she stayed in the shop any longer that day -even though it wasn't even lunchtime- and had practically shooed her out the door with her pay for a full day, and the promise of a bonus if she didn't come back the next day, just for her own health, because working all the time wasn't good for a young woman.

So she'd laughed, as she always did, since this was something that happened every few weeks, and went home to stash the money she wasn't going to use and to collect Bob -who always passed as some kind of art project or puppet if he perched on her shoulder while she was out in public- so that they could go for an outing, she figured that a trip to the zoo would do them both some good.

She debated packing a lunch, but after re-counting her day's pay, decided against it, because she could afford a lunch at the cafe, or she'd stop for a sandwich on the way home. And so it was with Bob in a small dog harness that she headed down the street to hop the bus, too warm to walk the whole way to the zoo, even though it wasn't far.

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Despite the slightly pregnant backpack appearance, Jay did not waddle or put his hand to the small of his back like it hurt. He was a tall, brawny guy. The couple pounds against his belly did not throw off his groove much.

"So which flavor of science will you be testing at the dino exhibit? Puppetry kinesthetics?"

"I think mostly the science was crowd migration patterns and how they pertain to having an anomaly of above-average size in their midst." She replied, smiling again, because really she couldn't help it, half of her science-talk came from science fiction, and the other half came from nature documentaries.

"And if the reaction is different from a single anomaly to a paired one." She shrugged carefully so as not to dislodge Bob from his perch, "Of course, we've just got field notes as to the singular, we'll have to compare later."

"I can tell you about reactions from being about 8 foot tall and green. There's a lot more room given until a three year old thinks you're a grown up Kermit the Frog." Jay shrugged. He remembered the utterly terrified look on the parents' faces until he gently picked up the little girl and crooned 'It Ain't Easy (Being Green)' to her.

He also mentioned being tall and green without batting an eyelash. His mother had a public identity, so he had one, too. Or so he figured out from all the fanmail from this Gina person he got.

"Oh. That's you." She kept up with the news, easiest way to tell if she was going to have to pack up and move in a hurry, after all, and she'd been having a good run so far.

"Had no idea I was talking shop with a celebrity." The smile went a little more crooked, "Might have at least tried to be impressed if I knew." She was also hoping that this turn of events wasn't going to prompt another move. She'd been lucky to be able to stay in one place as long as she'd been here and she knew it, but if there was any chance that the Program would find her, she'd have to vanish the same as she'd gotten good at.

"Yes, I'm Kermit the Frog," he admitted with a lopsided grin. He never thought of himself as famous. That was Mom's territory. Sometimes Dad's, too. Depending on whatever he did with the Fantastic Four.

"No need to be impressed. I don't think there's much call to with me. Now, if you were talking to my mom, then I'd expect you to be tongue-tied, flabbergasted, or possibly not stopping with the shaking of her hand." Not after he destroyed a bit of New York not too long ago. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. There was a very slight sound of snoring coming from the bottom of the backpack.

"I could try." She replied, "I've never been too good at star-struck." She shrugged, "One of the problems with going to a boarding school, I guess, don't get caught up in all the who's who and all the movies we get to see are a couple decades out of date at least."

It was during her second escape that she'd learned to call the Program a boarding school, people didn't ask a whole lot of questions about it that way, which made it easier on her in general.

Her brow creased a little at the snoring, but mostly she was distracted by the fact that Bob had started humming Rainbow Connection quietly to himself at the mention of Kermit the Frog, and didn't stop until she'd poked him a couple of times, causing another one of those static-y sighs, seeming to deflate a little further.

"That sounds like hell," Jay commented on the boarding school. Then again, he holographically commuted to a rez school. What did he know?

He laughed at Bob's song choice. At least the puppet could be topical at the right moments.

"I guess." She replied, giving a shrug, "Hard to say when I don't have a huge frame of reference." The smile returned a moment later, "I do like being able to see movies when they're relevant, though, so that's one thing to say for being an 'adult'." Finger-quotes and everything. She'd caught on quickly every time she'd been well and away from the Facility, it was a sort of protective coloring, learning quickly made it easier for her to blend in.

"Well, hopefully New York is being nice to you now that you're out of there." He tried not to sound skeptical about the city that way. He didn't like cities all that much. It was a saving grace from the Avengers Mansion to be right across of Central Park.

"Catching movies in a timely manner does help with conversation with the pop culture set. Which is most people under the age of 50 nowadays."

"Makes it easier to figure out what the headlines are about, too, so much cross-pollination in the media, it's insane."

She shrugged, "And it's a city, been treating me fine, I guess. I liked San Fransisco better, but it was... I don't know, wrong coast, I guess." And too close to the Facility, which made it easier for them to find her if she slipped up.

"Yeah. I tend to skip any publication that has a Kardashian as a big headline." He shrugged. He wasn't really one for chasing fame. Then again, he occasionally found it bothersome.

"I'm more of a desert boy. So neither coast is good for me." He shoved his hands in his pockets, making his shoulders hunch a bit.

"Deserts and me don't get along." She said, shaking her head, "Not enough foliage. I've got to have some plants around besides succulents, they're..."

She huffed a laugh, "I was going to say 'prickly' but I'm pretty sure that's obvious. They aren't friendly plants, for the most part."

"Deserts are usually an acquired taste," he noted. "Though anyone who grew up in one knows how to cuddle a cactus."

He was joking. Mostly. It really depended on the cactus and angle of entry. Which made it sound like rocket science. He shook his head a little ruefully.

She nodded, "Suppose that makes sense, people know how to handle whatever's in their home area and might be confused with how to deal with something from another biome."

An easy shrug, "I mean, I wouldn't much know what to do with a frozen tundra, either, and I regularly had to deal with hip-deep snowdrifts in the winter. Mostly managed by staying inside until the thaw."

"Frozen tundra? Man, your boarding school sucked." He shivered. "Hate ever-present cold."

The backpack on his chest shifted; the quiet snoring from inside got a little more pronounced.

"Oh it was only that snowy in the winter. I mostly stayed inside when I could. It was nice the rest of the year, never got too hot in the summer, not like here."

The fact that the dinosaur exhibit was a more enclosed area made that snoring even more obvious, and while Lex herself didn't mention it, Bob started making cartoonish snoring noises of his own, if quietly.

Jay eyed Bob the snoring accompanist. He poked the heavier part of the backpack.

"Boo, roll over or snore an octave higher for better harmony."

There was a disgruntled squeak, the pack wiggled a bit, and then a resumption of the snoring. At the same octave but more into Jay's chest.

"Okay." She said, shaking her head once, "I wasn't going to ask because I know it's none of my business." And lord knew she had secrets of her own, but really it was her own fault for dragging bob out into the open today. Sometimes life was unpredictable like that, "But what have you even got in there?"

She managed, if barely, to make that curious and not accusatory, mostly just puzzled because this was the first time in a long time that Bob had acted up like this.

Jay leaned just a little closer. He talked out of the side of his mouth like it was a big secret.

"Boo's a miniature giant space hamster. Who likes raspberries." He straightened up and nodded slyly. He glanced around to see how the crowd was. The sometimes green teen was not likely to pull Boo out in a place no pets were allowed.

Bob, in response to the word 'raspberries', blew one, a rather impressive one that trailed off into a deflating balloon squeak and left Lex pinching the bridge of her nose, the very picture of exasperation.

What she said, just a little muffled by her hand was, "How much longer can I keep you convinced he's a puppet? I'm guessing I'm already in the negative numbers."

"I've seen many a strange thing, but that's no puppet." That it was something else entirely didn't remotely bother him. Jay figured it was par for the course in his life.

Rather than ask where he could get one, he carefully opened the backpack to see how out of it Boo was. He nodded to a spot that seemed less crowded and the possible avoid giant mentality might give them some space. "If you want to see Boo."

"There's a bench around the corner, usually abandoned this time of day." It was shaped like a stack of dinosaur eggs and didn't look very comfortable, but it really was, it was just that most people avoided it without trying it first, "Might be a little more secluded."

She was reasonably sure that Jay didn't have anything to do with the Program, and if he did, she'd handle that, too.

It was a good thing this young woman was a relative stranger. He might have had an eyebrow waggle and emphasis on secluded otherwise.

"Sure," he agreed instead. Jay headed toward the indicated bench around the corner. He wasn't paying too much attention as he was trying to carefully get a very floppy Boo out of the bottom of his backpack.

At the bench he glanced around to make sure people weren't in easy view of the miniature giant space hamster he brought out.

She blinked twice, "That's... well, I'm not really sure what I was expecting."

She reached up to tap Bob with two fingers, "Say hi, Bob." After a brief moment of what was apparently hesitation, a single tendril extended, looking like beanstalk or grapevine, or some sort of climbing flower, uncurling a few inches before bumping against his dome in what was apparently a salute, making a bubble-popping sound before flicking upwards as he blew a raspberry, which caused Lex to sigh, kneading at the bridge of her nose again, "That's, uh, yeah that was a rude gesture."

She shook her head, "I blame myself, really, never did get him properly socialized."

"I find most people assume hamsters from space are supposed to look like hamsters from Earth. So, you're not alone in the regard." Jay carefully tried to put Boo back into the backpack. Except the space hamster opened one eye and saw Bob's salute.

Boo blew a raspberry back as it grabbed the edge of the backpack to keep from going back in.

Jay chuckled. "Yeah. Socializing is possibly a problem with guys like these."

Day at the zoo (intro and open to whoever's in the area)

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